Wendy the Super Librarian‘s review of A Christmas Wedding by Tracy Wolff
Contemporary romance released by Harlequin SuperRomance 11 Nov 08
Romance is the story of courtships. It’s about those heady, first days of falling of love. When the excitement is fresh, the couple is giddy with discovering each other, and the future looks rosy and bright. The novel is over before the real “fun” begins. Before the couple starts arguing about the kids, money, and before the hero can start resenting the fact that he’s working 40+ hours a week at a job he hates. Maybe it was this desire to explore conflict, post-happily-ever-after that led to the birth of the marriage in trouble plot? It’s an idea that Tracy Wolff explores in her debut Harlequin SuperRomance with mixed results.
Desiree Hawthorne-Rainwater is the only daughter of Big John Hawthorne, owner of the Triple H Ranch. They raise thoroughbred horses, and from the moment she could walk, Big John was grooming her to take over the family legacy. He’s a man obsessed with winning the Triple Crown, and to accomplish that mission he hires trainer Jesse Rainwater, 15 years Desiree’s senior. Over the years, the two fall in love, get married and have three children. Now one of those grown children is getting married in a lavish outdoor wedding at the ranch.
It’s the morning of the wedding when Jesse learns his wife has hired a new trainer behind his back. His replacement. Since her father’s death she has been consumed with winning the Triple Crown – a prize Jesse has failed to deliver. Their marriage has been a disaster for the last couple of years, and this final straw has pushed Jesse to the brink. He throws divorce papers at Desiree, on the same day as their daughter is getting married.
I found this to be a very problematic story, all thanks to Desiree who I flat-out did not like. She is a driven career woman who has sacrificed everything – her marriage, her children – to win the approval of a dead man. It’s her ranch. Her legacy. Hers, hers, hers. Never mind she’s been married to her husband for 27 years and he works on the ranch. Oh no. She’s the one calling the shots. The buck stops with her. And screw anybody who gets in her way.
Granted Jesse doesn’t earn a lot of points for handing over divorce papers on the day of his daughter’s wedding, but honestly I really couldn’t blame the guy. For 27 years his wife has been keeping his balls in a jar by the door. The word “emasculated” kept running through my mind over the course of this story, and I actually laughed out loud when the author uses the word towards the end. Seriously, I felt bad for this guy. I wanted him to go out and find a life – away from his wife who treated him as little more than an employee.
Normally when there’s a character that doesn’t work for me, the book keeps slapped with a really low grade. That being said, even despite my desire to throttle Desiree, this was one hard book for me to put down. I was compulsively reading it every moment I got. Standing in lines, waiting at red lights, on my lunch breaks at work – I could not tear my eyes away. Wolff can write, and she writes very well. Flashbacks are tricky things, and almost a necessity with marriage in trouble stories. She employs them to excellent effect, and I was positively tearing through this tale.
I did find the ending a bit abrupt, but I felt the “happily for now” style worked well. It would have been unbelievable, after all the years of neglect, for Desiree and Jesse to kiss passionately and have all their problems vanish into thin air. That being said, it probably won’t work for readers who prefer that everything is sunshine and rainbows by the closing paragraph.
While I had major issues with the heroine, I was so impressed with Wolff’s writing and storytelling, that I’m eager to give her another shot. And lucky for me? She has another book coming out from Harlequin SuperRomance in June 2009.
Grade: C-
Summary:
Desiree is determined to hold on to her husband. She’s loved Jesse Rainwater since the day the legendary horse trainer came to work at her father’s ranch. Now, on the eve of their daughter’s wedding, Jesse hits her with a bombshell that forces Desiree to reexamine their life together.
And she isn’t going down without a fight. She hasn’t struggled all these years to lose the thing that’s most precious to her. Desiree knows they share something true and strong, even if they lost sight of it somewhere along the way. Now her toughest battle lies ahead: to prove to Jesse that theirs is a love worth fighting for.
